Witch's Wrath (Blood And Magick #3)(22)

“You call an ambulance and they’ll bring the cops. Cops will ask questions, and we can’t have that.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it’s time for me to pay for the things I did.”

“How is this even possible?” Jared asked, “Aren’t you immortal?”

Remy coughed, and blood stained his lips. “I never said I was immortal; only that I wouldn’t age.” He turned his eyes up at me, and smiled again. “I enjoyed tonight right up until this last part… but I guess it’s not so bad either.”

“Remy…” I said, but his eyes turned misty and gray before I could figure out what else to say to him.

I listened to him breathe his last breath, and then he died in my arms.





CHAPTER ELEVEN


didn’t think I would. All thoughts of who he was and what he had done before we met him evaporated under the weighty idea that—for better or worse—Remy, powerful witch and icon in New Orleans, had been killed.

What the hell do we do now, came to mind more than once following his death, though I found myself unable to do little more than worry Remy wouldn’t be able to sleep with the rest of his family. What the hell do we do with him was a more valid, pressing question in urgent need of an answer.

But a letter had arrived at my house the very next day, almost as if by magick, outlining exactly who to contact in order to facilitate his burial. The letter, written in Remy’s own hand, had been signed just a few months ago. In it, he outlined the steps he had taken to ensure ownership of his family’s vault would follow him through the decades and centuries through the clever use of aliases and forgeries of his own personal documents.

That he had acquired a family vault back in the day, considering his origins as the descendent of slaves, was impressive enough, but that he had made it follow him through the centuries was even more impressive. Remy was prepared and thorough, and he had contingency plans established surrounding his death.

He knew it was coming; the only question for him was when.

The fact it arrived at my doorstep so soon following his death led me to believe that, sometime after I arrived in New Orleans, he had started to make plans for this eventuality. Whether he thought I would kill him, or that I would be the death of him, I didn’t know. But he did. He knew he would die, and soon.

Per his request, there had been no service, no eulogy. I was the only one there. Remy had left instructions for no one else to be present at the burial, and I had fought hard to honor them. The caretakers then sealed the vault up, all in silence, and that was that. In a year and a day, the vault would reopen, and Remy’s corpse would have turned to ash.

After his burial, many of the witches of New Orleans gathered at the Scarlet Cat where he wanted us to have one last drink on him. It made sense. He wasn’t the kind of guy to have wanted a group of somber witches, all clad in black and circled around his vault, watching his body get interred like a pizza into an oven. He wanted a celebration, with alcohol, merriment, and most of all, Jazz.

And that’s exactly what we gave him.

A live band was playing some of his favorite Jazz tunes, plates of boiled crawfish were being served by the dozen, and the bar was churning out Hurricanes like it was Mardi Gras. The only problem were the people. Everywhere I looked, no one seemed to be enjoying themselves. In fact, the people in the club were almost as still and as quiet as statues, drinking their alcohol and eating, but not talking to anyone else.

I understood why; what had happened the other night had been a horrific tragedy, and while Remy had been the only fatality, many witches had been seriously injured. Some had gotten away with scrapes, bruises, and bites, but others were in the hospital recovering from life-threatening wounds—Nicole’s mother, Jeanette, among them.

She had been in the main entrance hall when the vampire first showed up. One had gone for Nicole, but her mother had jumped in the way, thinking she had magick to protect herself. By the time she realized her magick was failing, the vampire was on her, drinking deeply from her jugular. Nicole had to rip him from her neck, but in doing so she had hurt her mother further. It was a miracle she survived.

Nicole was at the Scarlet Cat now, but like many of the other witches present, she hadn’t turned her head up in almost twenty minutes, staring into the bottom of her now empty glass like it held the power to tell her the future. I wished it could, for her and the others. I knew I would want closure for the injured at a time like this.

It wasn’t Nicole or anyone in my coven who came to speak to me as I watched the room from my booth, but Nina.

“Mind if I sit?” she asked, pointing at the empty space opposite from me.

“Sure,” I said, “How are you?”

“I’m doing okay. Better than what can be said for most folks.”

“Tell me about it. And Harvey?”

“Recovering. He’s sorry he couldn’t be here, but the doc has him on some strict pain medication for his arm. Goddamn vampire broke it in three places.”

I winced. “I’m sorry, that sounds awful.”

“It is, but others got it worse, so we’re grateful. How are you holding up?”

“I’m okay… I’m pissed this happened, pissed at how useless I was to defend myself. To defend us.”

Nina reached out her hand and held mine. “It wasn’t your fault. Don’t be so hard on yourself, okay? Let this be about Remy. Everything else can come later.”